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In Jamaica, Always Bet on Gray

It’s five minutes before post time at Caymanas Race Track in Kingston, Jamaica. I have a $1,000 bill in my hand, and I can’t remember if I want to bet the No. 3 horse or the No. 4 horse.

Baron Wolman

Verify stands in the winners circle after winning a race at Caymanas Race Track in Kingston, Jamaica.

I am not standing at the ticket window. I am inside the cashier’s box, having been escorted by the chief of security. I’m a VIP today. My Red Stripes and meat patties are on the house. I’m not the kind of guy who waits in line to place a bet. Not today.

I take a deep breath and wish I were someplace else. I know nothing about horses, and I hate gambling. I’m no good at it, and I don’t like feeling stupid.
The cashier stares up at me. I look at the money in my hand.

“Thousand on No. 4 to win,” I say. Fine. Whatever. I don’t belong here. Let’s get it over with.

I’m not a risk taker. I’m the kind of guy who checks next to the kids’ beds every night to make sure there are no sharp objects, so if one of them falls she won’t impale herself. One kid still sleeps in a crib. I check anyway.

So, a year and a half ago, when my writer pal Charlie Newton asked me if I wanted to team up with him to buy a horse in Kingston, I answered him with one of those yeah-right chuckles. Unfortunately, Charlie doesn’t speak Wimp, which is my native tongue. He kept talking, explaining his idea with zeal.

Charlie says he knows a guy in Kingston. The guy runs Caymanas and trains horses. We get 10 guys to invest $2,000 each and we buy one of his horses and pay the guy to train it for us. For two grand you own part of a horse that, you never know, could run in the Kentucky Derby some day. If the horse loses, we sell it back and recoup some of the dough.

I try my chuckle again. He still doesn’t get it.

We’ll go down there and have a good time, Charlie says. Maybe we’ll write a story about it. Sell one story to Esquire and you make your money back on the horse, right? The guy who owns the track is happy because he gets good publicity. It’s a win-win.

I don’t chuckle. That sort of makes sense.

And we’re not buying some nag, he says. For twenty, thirty grand, we can get a good horse. Thirty grand goes far in Jamaica.

Now it’s thirty grand, I notice. Chuckle.

A couple months go by. Charlie’s still on me about this. He’s not letting it go. I need to be strong. I need to tell him I’m taking a pass.

I lie. I tell him my wife won’t let me do it.

It takes some time, but Charlie forgives me. His scheme falls apart.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who got cold feet.

But last week Charlie and I were in Jamaica for the Kingston Pon Di River festival. And while we were there, we went to Caymanas to meet the man who runs the place.

His name is Franz C. Jobson, a 41-year-old Jamaican who practiced law in the United States before returning home to become chief executive officer of Caymanas, hoping to revive the business and make it a popular destination for tourists.

On the day Charlie and I arrive, Caymanas is hosting the 73rd running of the Bigga Jamaica Oaks, leg two of what Jamaicans consider their Triple Crown. Jobson is dressed in a handsome suit. In the private suites, women wear designer dresses and Easter parade hats. Down in the grandstand, race fans munch meat patties and smoke marijuana.

I ask the head of security where I need to go to make a bet. He takes me past the men with the meat pies and marijuana and into the booth where cashiers process the bets. But when I get to the register, I can’t remember the name or the number of my horse. I only know it’s gray, and I’m afraid to ask the cashier or the security chief if one of them happens to know which one was gray, the three or the four.

I’m rattled.

So it comes down to coin toss. No. 4 reminds me of Lou Gehrig, so I bet $1,000 on number four.

I walk back to the track and realize, immediately, that I’d picked the wrong one.

“You didn’t bet the damn gray horse, did you?” Charlie asks.

“Nah,” I say, real cool. “I like the No. 4. He looks like the real thing.”

Charlie shoots me a look that says he isn’t buying it.

You can guess what happens next.

After lagging far behind most of the race, the gray horse, Verify (I love that name!) shoots like a bullet out of the pack and wins it at the wire. He pays 3-1 odds.

I think about telling Charlie it’s his fault, but I decide to let it go. There’s only one consolation: In Jamaica, $1,000 is worth $11.52 American.

SPORTS, THE JOURNAL WAY

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